Thursday, December 1, 2011

cough, cough

Last night, J officially came down with croup.  A small cold had been brewing the last few days but last night it came to fruition with loud, honking, barking coughs.

Poor boy.

Unfortunately, T was at work and there was no one to help talk me off the freak-out, panic, manic ledge that comes with motherhood.  Instead, I texted T many times giving specific details on J's illness and how it was expressing itself.  I went so far as to make a voice recording on my phone of J's coughing and send it to T.

This recording turned out to be the perfect way for T to diagnose J with croup - the classic barking cough that accompanies this illness.  To confirm his diagnosis (remember, T is a pediatric ER nurse), T played the soundbite for the Attendings, Residents, and other ER nurses.  Their response?  Textbook croup.

With T's medical background, knowledge, and access to treatment, we have all that we need to treat J without a trip to the ER.  Thank. God.  Now, the poor boy is finally napping after waking himself up repeatedly with nasty coughing.  I am working from home today, albeit exhausted from little sleep last night.  I want my healthy baby back.

Has your child ever had croup?  
I hear it gets worse before it gets better and can last up to 10! days!  
How did you make it through?


P.S.  Look who turned 8 months a couple of weeks ago!!!!


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

For most mild cases it only lasts a few days.

Here's a post I did on croup last month!

Take care!

PhaseThreeOfLife said...

Omg, my kid just had this last month... is it not the scariest thing?? For Ryan, it seemed like he was really struggling to breathe and cry. Our on-call nurse told us to sleep in his room that night to make sure he didn't stop breathing. You can imagine how much rest we got that night. Ryan's was definitely at it's worst the first two nights. After that, he did have a cough for a while but it got a little better every day and was gone within a week. Good luck! Hope your little guy is feeling better soon.

Unknown said...

Poor baby, hopefully he gets better soon!
The worst part about winter is all the illness that goes around.